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Backpack : Curious as to why Enigma is listed as a hard support to play. Is it just because you have to know how to jungle?
I think he should be switched with ES. Correctly playing Earthshaker is much harder than with Enigma.
Enigma is one of the most difficult supports because of his ult. It's most of his utility (especially late game) and requires impeccable timing and situational awareness to use effectively. If you miss anyone who can disable you there's a good chance you just cost your team a fight.
ES is also pretty difficult, but is much more forgiving in that it takes an epic bad fissure to really hose your team. The cooldowns on ES's abilities are also much shorter, giving you more opportunities to help out.
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Anyone who plays Chen gets my auto-respect if he does well. I know microing is ez due to SC2, but whenever I play him, I fumble and suck balls.
Both VS, Lich and Crystal Maiden are the easiest in the world because their intent or use in the game is straight-forward: pull creeps, deny/harass, ward hardcore.
really simple :3 Lich especially!
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On November 01 2011 04:00 Torte de Lini wrote: Anyone who plays Chen gets my auto-respect if he does well. I know microing is ez due to SC2, but whenever I play him, I fumble and suck balls. Yeh, I was so impressed with Puppeh playing Chen. It was beautiful, I tried to play a game with Chen straight after the finals and failed so hard.
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I actually have no idea why ES is listed as an easy hero either. Probably at least a medium for the awareness and skill needed to land a good fissure and echo.
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If I'm playing ES or SK, when is it okay (if it is) to take farm from a hard carry? I always really want to get that blink dagger/portal key, but I'm always afraid of screwing up the late game because I took a kill or two. Is it usually best to just save up my assist gold? If I'm in a pub, I could just sneak in a KS during a teamfight, no?
Edit How convenient for me to make this post just before beerfury makes a post that provides some insight that I want lol.
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First of all, nice post.
It is very interesting that you mention the priority of farming, which is very important in the game. The importance of gold to different role surely reflect the payoff of the farm. However, I think support should actually have fair amount of farm instead of relying on the gold thats given out base on time. Look back the old LGD when the dominate chinese dota. It is not hard to find that even though their carries are given a lot of space for farming, but the supporters are also farmed. Not necessarily collect gold from creep or kills, but from pushing. Their strategy is gank and push, which supporter support only the early game and leave the lane when the carry gains advantages. Overall, both sides (carry and support) out farmed and out leveled the other team. That really makes LGD a legend. So I think support's job is not wait money to buy ward but do has a sense of farming to maintain high survivability.
Regarding your classification of the supporters, I would say I agree on some of it. For ES, which is my fav hero, I think dagger is not a need. Ofter ES player think dagger will helps them change the game, but it is not against stacked team now because it is hard to jump in and ult the whole team. With higher caution, ES could barely contribute to the teamfight with less survivability. Represent by EH.357, who a is very creative support player, he usually make bracer or vanguard when facing a tough team. It works out really well. With higher hp and defensive build, ES can finish a complete combo and maybe some extra stun to help out the team. ES's ult is deadly, but fissure is the skill which makes ES annoying and shine.
For the difficulties of the supporters, I don't think enigma should be classified difficult. Compare to other junglers, enigma is easy and can farm up fast. With chen and enchantress, they both need some level of micro which is hard for new players. But enigma is simple. Besides that, I saw someone mentions Furion as a supporter. Yes, he is a decent support because he can help out anytime anywhere. I also consider it to be hard to play support because it do require a lot of map awareness and mini map awareness. It also can farm up fast since he can jungle and push lanes. One mistake which many ignorant player made is they push 24/7 and leave carry no money and blame the teammates for losing. Keep in mind that furion's skill is not qualified for a hard carry therefore furion should only farm the free money: which means the money that the carry can't farm. He can helps out when the other team is pushing one lane but your team has no way to stop the push, furion with simple build may even out push the other team.
Sum it up, support is probably the hardest role or most complicated role in the game because they have multi task to do. They are usually the nice guy on your team who pays your delivery(couriers) and buy you free drink(health potion). So don't blame supporter too hard considering the level of skills that are required to be a pro support.
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On November 01 2011 05:12 LoLAdriankat wrote: If I'm playing ES or SK, when is it okay (if it is) to take farm from a hard carry? I always really want to get that blink dagger/portal key, but I'm always afraid of screwing up the late game because I took a kill or two. Is it usually best to just save up my assist gold? If I'm in a pub, I could just sneak in a KS during a teamfight, no? Basically only take farm when you're very close to dagger. Live off assist gold/ganks/random creeps until you're a few hundred off it, then ask to take a wave or two, hopefully when your carry is off jungling/healing/dead.
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I never went competitive in DotA one, despite playing it causally for a year, because I was always infactuated with the hero Razer as a concept. I just really like the idea of a zippy hero without a escape mechanism that can be mended as the game develops into any role with the right items.
Have you played Razer yet? Does it feel the same as it was in Dota?
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On November 01 2011 05:41 Primadog wrote: I never went competitive in DotA one, despite playing it causally for a year, because I was always infactuated with the hero Razer as a concept. I just really like the idea of a zippy hero without a escape mechanism that can be mended as the game develops into any role with the right items.
Have you played Razer yet? Does it feel the same as it was in Dota?
He whips you into place if that's what you want to know.
In any case, all heroes are about exactly the same as they were in DOTA1.
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On November 01 2011 05:41 Primadog wrote: I never went competitive in DotA one, despite playing it causally for a year, because I was always infactuated with the hero Razer as a concept. I just really like the idea of a zippy hero without a escape mechanism that can be mended as the game develops into any role with the right items.
Have you played Razer yet? Does it feel the same as it was in Dota? Depends if you're talking about the Razer before his major remake or after it. How long ago did you play DotA1?
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On November 01 2011 04:00 Torte de Lini wrote: Anyone who plays Chen gets my auto-respect if he does well. I know microing is ez due to SC2, but whenever I play him, I fumble and suck balls.
Both VS, Lich and Crystal Maiden are the easiest in the world because their intent or use in the game is straight-forward: pull creeps, deny/harass, ward hardcore.
really simple :3 Lich especially!
Suddenly an amazing Meepo is played in competitive play and a black hole appears
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On November 01 2011 04:00 Torte de Lini wrote: Anyone who plays Chen gets my auto-respect if he does well. I know microing is ez due to SC2, but whenever I play him, I fumble and suck balls.
i totally agree, playing Chen is a real challenge. its not only about moving the creeps and Chen simultaneously sometimes on very different parts of the map, its about using the creep skills to their full effect as well. I really like playing Chen, but it's really hard and I'm by no means a good Chen yet.
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everytime i read chen somewhere i remember puppey saving pudges life at the internationals final :D awesome, puppey obviously being one of the best chen users out there
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On November 01 2011 05:47 Ognam wrote:Show nested quote +On November 01 2011 05:41 Primadog wrote: I never went competitive in DotA one, despite playing it causally for a year, because I was always infactuated with the hero Razer as a concept. I just really like the idea of a zippy hero without a escape mechanism that can be mended as the game develops into any role with the right items.
Have you played Razer yet? Does it feel the same as it was in Dota? Depends if you're talking about the Razer before his major remake or after it. How long ago did you play DotA1?
I prefer the original, passive-driven version of Razer, but the new spammier one was acceptable as well.
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mm, i find it a bit odd you don't consider dark seer or rhasta as support heroes. o.o
all in all though, good guide
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As a person who played DotA for years, most of this guide doesn't come as a surprise to me. Nevertheless, I find it interesting that out of all champions, the support champions seem to have the strongest battle-turning ultimates (except Sven, maybe). Compared to the raw disruption that Enigma and Earthshaker's ultimates possess, it feels like the ultimates of some of the 'carry' champions are just underwhelming.
I guess this reflects the design that spells don't really scale and these support champions don't really scale well with items in general, and as a result need to have more powerful ultimates.
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Thanks for the opportunity again Bumblebee. Love the added content with your blogs on Dota, especially for alot of the newer players that are sure to be attracted to this game. Always felt like those players who played SC2, especially somewhat competitively, and actively tried to get better, would naturally find a very similarly challenging, yet ultimately rewarding experience in a game like Dota.
Hopefully these articles help shed some light on alot of the fundamentals and details about the game, and also show more depth and nuance for those who are already familiar with alot of the basics. Supports are a key part of the game, and as many have said, are generally a great type of character for a newer player to adopt. They feel like they are helping the team, and playing an integral role, but without quite the pressure of a hard carry, knowing the whole game rests in large part due to you doing your job properly.
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Australia8532 Posts
Thanks for the blog! Excited that i saw this even though i don't have twitter;
Another great read but seeing ES in the easy spoiler made me double take a little bit. Performing a useful stun with ES is a pretty hard feat for normal players. I mean messing up his block can hurt your team so so much. Furthermore, knowing when and how to ult is also a core skill that goes beyond the 'easy' category. He also requires a good sense of farm, because beyond being a support player, if the game goes late he needs a blink dagger and turns into your initiator.
Overall, a really good blog and i agree with your comments about wards being the absolute top priority. I feel a magic stick should be a pretty close second after boots; it's just so useful!
Edit: CMs ult just got a buff in HoN - is it the same mechanic in dota2?
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CM's hard if you trilane, because you're responsible for using your 600 range along with your slow to do a ton of harassment while denying and taking the occasional creep kill. You can kill a level 4 creep with level 1 frostbite (except a furborg, which takes a few extra hits), while still running, which is nice for extra gold.
Chen, my biggest problem is always being in the right place at the right time to port allies back to base. Good supports have to tp immediately to other lanes in ganks. If you're late, you messed up and you're not a good support. Solos can be a bit more oblivious and focus on laning.
Perfect fissures are hard. Being a typical pub counterganker is much easier. Positioning perfectly with stunners is non-trivial and spells the difference between an unstoppable gank against a good player and a failure.
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I hope you didnt give out the keys yet :o! I see so many people typing walls of text and im unable to impress you because i cant say much but im eager to play DotA and im super excited. i admire its diversity compared to LoL and the game looks so crisp and clean atm. I was never a support player though so :x
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